


(We) Trawl The Megahertz

by commoncomitatus



Category: Defiance (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mid-S1, some time before “Goodbye Blue Sky”.  Alak gets in over his head, and Irisa gets a new friend.  Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They stumble into each other on the street.

It’s completely by accident, a collision that’s as violent as it is inevitable. Alak doesn’t even have time to fully process what’s happened before he hears his own voice mumbling an apology, half-assed and automatic, like it’s all his fault. It’s not, of course, but that doesn’t really matter; the streets are crowded, just like they always are at this time of day, and they’re both kind of distracted anyway. He’s thinking about Christie (because, hey, when isn’t he thinking about Christie?), and Irisa is thinking about… well, he’s not sure he really wants to know what she’s thinking about, to be honest. She’s got that scary look on her face, the one that says she’ll tear him apart if he so much as looks at her funny. Maybe she will, and maybe she won’t, but either way he’s sure not gonna take that chance.

She mutters something at him in Irathient; he’s not completely unfamiliar with the language, and it doesn’t take a genius to realise that she’s cussing him out, but the actual words are anyone’s guess. If her dad the lawkeeper was here, he’d probably give her a cuff on the ear and tell her to show some manners, but he’s not. He’s never around when he’s needed, Alak muses, and the upshot of it this time is that there’s no-one around to tether his unstable daughter to the ground of basic decency.

Not that Alak would expect politeness from an Irath, anyway, but whatever. He, at least, was raised right (for all that he wishes he wasn’t), and so he takes the high ground, letting the crappy attitude slide with a smile and a wave.

As she moves to push past him (and of course she doesn’t even bother to acknowledge the part where he had the good grace to apologise), the light bounces off her at just the right angle, and he catches a sudden sharp glint of something behind her eyes. It’s not dangerous like he’d expect from her, but something soft, something almost painful. _Sorrow_ , he realises in a flash of clarity, and it strikes him almost dumb. He didn’t know she was capable of anything beyond anger and bitterness, but there it is, clear as day. She’s covered it up pretty well, he’ll give her that. With all that needless aggression and unfocused spite, it’s a miracle he can see it at all. 

Alak knows all about aggression and spite, even violence. By his own admission he knows it a whole lot better than most of the losers in Defiance, and he thinks he’s got Irisa down pretty well just on the grounds of her unapologetic rage. He doesn’t expect to see something softer in her, much less to feel it hit him like he does, but as he thinks about it, he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, he’s pretty well-schooled in post-teenage angst, too, and Irisa has got a whole lot of that going on behind those creepy Irath eyes.

It’s a reminder, the weird colour of her eyes, that she’s not like him. She’s an Irath raised by a human, about as far away from Alak and his traditional Casti upbringing as anyone can get. He shouldn’t see anything he recognises in her at all, but something about the way the light catches tells her that the strange familiar sorrow has nothing to do with that. It’s not an Irathient thing, he can tell, or even some weird lashing-out-at-daddy-Nolan thing; there’s something really haunted going on behind those eyes, something seriously screwed-up, and the memory of it stays with him for a long time to come, itching like bugs underneath his skin.

He’s not entirely sure what weird force of nature compels him to chase her up later that day and ask if she’s okay, but he can’t get that look out of his head. It’s the look of someone who needs a friend — a real friend, that is, not the kind of ‘friend’ that Deputy LaSalle wishes he could be. (Nolan may be oblivious to it, but Alak is neither blind nor stupid, and he sees more than people think from way up high in the arch). She looks like someone who has a lot on her mind, someone who maybe needs to talk things through… and, well, Alak’s not really much of a talker himself, but he gets it. He wishes he didn’t, but he does, and the part of him that isn’t thinking about Christie kind of wants to help.

Well, it’s not exactly ‘helping’, really. She is an Irath, after all, and he’s a Casti, and it’s not like their people have ever had much reason to try and help each other. Alak’s a lot more open-minded than most of his Casti brethren — he kind of has to be, what with the whole ‘about to marry a human’ thing — but even he has his limits, and he’s pretty sure his folks would freak out if they thought for a second he might be having sympathies for an Irathient. Not that their opinions have ever been enough to stop him when he’s got his mind on something, of course, but Datak Tarr is a pretty powerful force in Defiance and any trouble with Irisa would inevitably turn into trouble with dear ol’ Daddy Nolan… and, of course, trouble with the lawkeeper always ends up being trouble for Alak, no matter how clean he tries to keep his nose.

So he’s got to tread lightly, if he’s going to tread at all, and make out that he cares about this a whole lot less than he does. Not just for the sake of Irisa’s pride (because Irathients are nothing if not proud when they have no reason to be), but for the sake of his own skin too. His heart is mostly in the right place, after all, and the last thing he wants is to ‘rock the boat’, or whatever that metaphor is that Rafe McCawley loves so much. No, he just wants to be a friend, if she’ll have him as one, and the less drama he can pick up along the way, the better.

It’s disappointing (but not exactly a surprise) when she responds to his offer of a sympathetic shoulder by threatening to cut off the only part of him that Christie has any use for — her words, not his, though he’s not exactly inclined to disagree; sometimes, he wonders what his girlfriend sees in him at all, and all the more so when he comes up with hare-brained ideas like this. It’s pretty damn dangerous, for one thing, and Alak would be the first to admit that he’s not exactly much of a catch… but love is blind, or so they say, and for some crazy reason Christie loves him. All of him, that is, not just the part that’s currently getting acquainted with the pointy end of Irisa’s knife.

She hisses and hunches down, baring her teeth and her blade with equal enthusiasm, and if he wasn’t so sure that she really would do what she’s threatening without so much as a second thought, he might even find it kind of endearing, at least in a weird feral kind of way. She’s like a kitten hissing at a ball of yarn, fur all sticking up and claws raking at the air. It’s cute, in a lethal kind of way, but he takes the hint because he values his life, and backs away with both hands up.

“You know where to find me,” he says before he leaves, and considers it a victory when she doesn’t throw the knife at his head.

*

Judging by the look on her face, it’s as much a surprise for her as it is for him when she shows up at the arch the next day.

He’s pretty sure the door was safely locked when he started his set, belting out the best and brightest of new- and old-school super-hits for Defiance’s listening pleasure, but it’s not exactly new information that Irisa goes wherever she wants regardless of little things like privacy and locked doors. As a gesture of goodwill (and because he knows that the answer will involve way more detail than he wants to hear), Alak doesn’t ask how she got in; he just takes the whole thing in stride and rolls with it. That is his field of expertise, after all.

“You wanna sit down?” he asks, cool and careless.

Irisa glances around, taking in the limited space, and quirks a disdainful eyebrow. “Where?” she demands.

She kind of has a point, there; the top of the arch is hardly the most well-kept corner of town, and it’s not really designed for more than one person at a time. Still, though, Alak doesn’t care about that. He loves it here, he really does. All the dust and decay, the isolation and the dizzying view, the dirt and the grime and the beat-up old broadcasting equipment… all of it, everything. It pulses through him like a second heartbeat, like the unmistakable kick of a bass drum, and he would fight a hundred Volge or more to protect it if he had to. It’s his sanctuary, his special space; this tiny corner of dust and rust is his whole damn world. He can feel it in his bones. This place is home.

His heart swells just thinking of it, so full with how much he loves this place that it overwhelms him sometimes, reaching in deep and wrapping its musty old-world smell around his heart, drowning out everything else inside him — his power-hungry father, his scheming traditional mother, this worthless do-nothing town, sometimes even his feelings for Christie. He’d never admit that last part out loud, of course, but even if he did he’s pretty sure she’d understand; she’s pretty awesome that way.

Irisa, on the other hand, is anything but awesome. She’s on edge, pacing like a caged animal almost before she’s even all the way through the door, crossing the whole tiny space a dozen times in barely as many seconds and refusing to hold still. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she’s not comfortable being here, and that kind of sets Alak even more at his ease; he always seems to be at his most comfortable when those around him are at their least. Maybe it’s a Casti thing, or else maybe he just takes after his mother. She’s always good in situations like this, too, always ready to pounce when she sees something in someone that she can work with.

It’s not really a pleasant thought, turning out like his mom, but Alak pushes that to the back of his mind and focuses instead on the task at hand. Irisa is edging dangerously close to his workstation, and he’s quick to step between them, protecting his precious radio gear far more than the irate Irath who might electrocute herself if she touches the wrong thing. He’s happy to share his space if she wants to hang, but the equipment is his, and nobody touches that but him.

He lets the current track spin through to its ends; it’s a hippyish Casti chant played at the request of some listener who clearly has more scrip than sense. It really isn’t his style at all, but Mayor Rosewater has been all over him lately about taking ‘requests’ from his listeners, and this one was a test-drive, a little experiment in letting the people have their say. Turns out, they’re muzzled for a reason, and he’s not about to try that particular indulgence again any time soon. Let the mayor do what she wants, he thinks; Raider Radio is Alak Tarr’s playground, and they’ll have to burn it to the ground if they want him to leave.

At any rate, once the track is over, he switches to something a little longer, something that’ll give him the time and peace to entertain his unexpected guest. He picks out a nice long Dream Theater epic, a massive sprawling thing that clashes violently with the last song, and cheerfully hums out the intro to the mental image of Mayor Rosewater’s horrified expression.

“Your taste in music leaves a lot to be desired.”

Alak splutters his outrage. He’s a pretty laid-back guy, all things considered, but some things are sacrosanct, and a man’s music is one of them. That and his woman, but he’s pretty sure Irisa has never even exchanged a ‘hello’ with Christie, much less talked with her enough to actually form an opinion, so she at least is safe for the time being. Dream Theater, apparently, is not so lucky, and he’s right up in her face in about half a second, scowling down at her. The knife to his nether region was kinder than this, he thinks bitterly.

“What do you know about taste?” he demands.

Irisa shrugs. “Enough to know that this is shtako.”

And just like that, Alak’s cool and accommodating nature is gone. “Did you want something?” he snaps. “Or did you just come here to crap all over my setlist?”

In the half-second before she turns away, he thinks he catches the barest hint of a smile on that always-scowling face of hers. He’s not entirely sure, though, and it’s gone before he can double-check. He casts it to the back of his mind, chalking it up to the lousy lighting, but then she opens her mouth to speak and there’s no denying the smug satisfaction in her voice.

“I was curious,” she says. “Wanted to see how easy it was to break in.” She looks around, casually dismissive, and he can tell she’s just doing it to annoy him now. “If I’d’ve known it was this easy, I would’ve come up here sooner and shut down this whole operation.” She runs her fingers along the cool metal of her deputy’s badge, slow and deliberate. “I could still do that, you know. Arrest you for crimes against quality. Would’ve done the whole town a favour.”

“Whatever,” Alak sulks. They both know it’s just hot air, and he’s not going to give her the satisfaction of rising to the bait. “Just keep your blades away from the equipment, yeah? It’s delicate.”

“Like you,” she huffs, but complies just the same.

He watches, unable to mask his curiosity as she hunkers down, crouching on her haunches on the other side of the arch. She doesn’t say anything else, just watches him, and Alak makes no effort to ease the tension. The ghost of sorrow is still there behind her weird Irath eyes, but it’s a lot more well-hidden now, pushed aside and shoved down by that abrasive need to piss off anyone who gets too close to it. Maybe on another day Alak would have been the bigger man, stood up and broken through her barriers, cut down the disdain and the self-defence and eked out the source of that sort-of sadness. Maybe he would have been like his mother after all, finding the weakness in Irisa and latching onto it, stripping her down and pulling out the guts of what’s inside her before she even realised it was happening. Maybe he would have found a way to be her friend, tried a little harder or pushed a little more. But he’s not like his mother, and this isn’t another day.

His parents are very Castithan, which means they’re very proud. Alak is proud, too, but in a different way; Irisa insulted his precious music, and that just won’t stand. At least, not right now. Maybe after he’s cooled down he’ll try again, remember what that sorrow looked like and why he was so compelled to help. Maybe after a couple more songs, after he plays a tune so awesome even she won’t be able to deny it. Maybe a little later he’ll come around and reach out his hand again. Or maybe not. Maybe he’ll just try to educate her instead. Clearly, she needs it.

For now, though, he just smirks at her and vindictively enjoys Dream Theater. Irisa, of course, is cringing melodramatically at every note, scowling at him like he asked her to come up here, or else like he’s somehow stopping her from turning around and going back the way she came if it’s such an offence to her delicate Irath sensibilities. Of course, he supposes, she’s pretty proud too, and leaving would be admitting defeat. He doesn’t really know her particularly well just yet, but he knows her type — Irathient, sure, but angry post-teenage chick too — and he knows, sure as shtako, that she wouldn’t leave now even if the arch was on fire.

So she stays, hissing that feral-cat hiss of hers and not taking her eyes off him, twitching and rocking on her heels as the resonating echo of Dream Theater bounces impossibly off the walls and the space between them.

And that right there is another thing that Alak loves about this place: the acoustics _rock_.

*

She shows up the next day too, just as he’s setting up to begin his show. She doesn’t say ‘hi’, or anything else, just hunkers down in the same corner as yesterday, wearing the same scowl on her face and talking the same shtako about his so-called ‘taste’. Alak taunts her a little bit this time, makes a point of playing stuff that he knows is awful just to see how she’ll react to it, and stuff that even she couldn’t fault just to watch her try.

Towards the end of the show, he even spins a little Irath folk-rock, some real back-home rootsy stuff. It’s dangerous, he knows, but he can’t resist the challenge to test the waters. Her reaction surprises him, though, and he watches without comment as she struggles to hide the pangs of pain.

He’s not sure whether it’s nostalgia that tightens her shoulders and makes her eyes wet, or a kind of longing. Irisa’s strange upbringing is no secret in Defiance, but Alak doesn’t really know very much about it. It’s not really any of his business anyway, he supposes, but if she really was raised by Lawkeeper Nolan like everyone says, maybe she doesn’t know quite as much about her Irath heritage as she feels she ought to. Maybe that’s a chip on her shoulder, another weight added to the dozens of others he’s sure she’s lugging around. It might go some way to explaining the permanent glare, anyhow, and the pervading hatred for everything that has a pulse, if she thinks she’s unworthy of her people — not human enough to be human, too human to be Irath.

They don’t talk about it, but there’s a mellowness between them that wasn’t the first time, a kind of unspoken truce, acceptance and understanding: it’s okay to bitch at each other, their silences seem to say, so long as it’s just in here. It’s like a kind of understanding, but less so, like they both kind of realise this competitive game of one-upsmanship is the only way they’ll ever be able to truly communicate.

Irisa is angry and sad, tragic in ways that Alak can see shimmering beneath the surface, but she can’t talk about that. He’s seen the way that she flinches, the way that she lashes out against anyone who ventures too close to her personal space, the unfettered violence that comes to her, so close to lashing out in the moment or two before she catches herself and realises what she’s doing. It wasn’t quite there when she made those threats against his manhood, but he could feel it humming under her skin, making her fingers tremble and reshaping the simple steel of her blade into something more like coldfire.

Alak has issues too, but he can tell hers are different. His are the kind of issues that can usually be silenced by a good lyric or a good riff or a good solo, the kind of issues that he forgets about when he’s out with his friends or in Christie’s arms. If the haunted look she tries so hard to hide is anything to go by, Irisa’s issues aren’t so easily switched off, and sometimes when he sees those dark edges twisting underneath the quick-mouthed jibes and the disdain, he aches with the need to reach out and tear them away from her, to save her from the corners of herself that she won’t confront and won’t talk about.

He can’t do that, though, so he does what he can. Pretends he doesn’t see them, pretends he doesn’t see anything deeper than what she wants him to see, and listens only to the way she snarls out insults in her native tongue and complains in the neutral human language about his choice of tunes. That’s the safe zone, the comfortable area, the place where all the lines are drawn and they both know where they stand. It’s the mark in the sand that can’t be crossed, and soon Alak finds that he’s not even really offended any more when she insists that his favourite bands suck.

About halfway through the show, Nolan calls her. Alak doesn’t really listen to what they’re discussing, but he assumes there’s some kind of official lawkeeper business going down or something because Irisa stands to leave as soon as the call’s over. She doesn’t tell him where she’s going, or what the emergency is, and he doesn’t ask. She just huffs and yanks open the door, and he shrugs in return and he flips out the disk as the song winds down.

He watches out of the corner of his eye as her lips twitch, nostrils flaring and eyes going wide, even more eerily Irath than usual, like she’s fighting some primal impulse. He doesn’t need to look at her to know that she’s stuck, that she wants to say something but can’t quite resist those repressive Irathient instincts, and it kind of hurts that they can’t quite push past that point, that it’s still all stubborn scowling and muttering when they part ways… but, hey, at least it doesn’t end with an awkward and messy soap-opera ‘goodbye’ every time she stalks out.

And anyway, he’s sure she’ll come back tomorrow.

*

She doesn’t, though, and he finds that his set is just a little bit less fun without her bad attitude to fill the silence between the songs.

The day after that, she does, stalking back in like she was never gone, and he notes without comment that she’s even more grumpy and uncommunicative than usual. It’s surprising that he doesn’t even find the attitude abrasive any more. To nobody’s surprise, she makes a point of not telling him where she’s been, and Alak doesn’t waste his time trying to wheedle it out of her. He figures it’s probably something to do with her dad, though, because… well, she’s not exactly subtle about it, even if she’s not saying the words. When she’s not snarling at him about his choice of song, she’s spitting and swearing in that guttural Irath language, and of course about the only word he can make out is ‘Nolan’.

She may be many things, he thinks, but subtle sure ain’t one of them.

Naturally, then, he spins “Cats In The Cradle”, dedicating it to ‘Defiance’s most dysfunctional lawkeeper’, and laughs when she launches a blade at his head.

*

“Y’know, I don’t always get along with my dad either.”

Irisa cocks her head to the side. It’s day five, maybe day six, and she’s crouched in her usual spot. They’re entertaining their usual pseudo-aggressive silence; this time it’s been about an hour or two since either of them said anything. At least, to each other; fact is, Alak’s still got a show to put on, and he’s been announcing tracks and vamping for commercials and everything else with his usual effortless fluidity. It’s pissed her off, he knows, and not just because he’s been feeling the weight of her scowl on the back of his head for the entire session. Honestly, he doesn’t mind the silence, or even the scowling — he’s actually come to kinda sorta maybe enjoy her company just for its own sake — and he’d normally be happy to let it stretch out until the set ends or she gets bored (or both). But then, he’s just put on a long classical Casti piece, and his mind just naturally swung back towards his own parents, and… yeah, sometimes his mouth runs away before his brain gets a chance to clip its wings.

It’s no real secret that Alak’s folks don’t think much of his little venture into radio broadcasting, but they’re smart enough, at least for not, that they haven’t tried to talk him out of it. He’s sure it’s coming — no doubt they’ll wait till after the wedding and spring it on him in the middle of the honeymoon — but for now they’ve been ominously silent on the whole ‘shameful human ritual’ thing. Still, he knows the mark of parental disapproval well and, though he really does know better, he finds himself compelled to make sure Irisa knows that he gets it.

She continues to study him for a beat or two, still silent and still scowling. She’s not thrown anything at him this time, and she’s not made an excuse and stormed out either, both of which are pretty promising things, but she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to validate his efforts with a reply, either. Mostly, she just seems content to watch him squirm, and he’s embarrassed to admit he kind of is. Maybe. A little. It’s not that he’s easily discomfited or anything, but her stare is kind of piercing, and he finds it weirdly unnerving. Not bad enough that it turns him to goop, but enough that it disarms him a little and… okay, so maybe he is squirming. Suddenly, he’s really really grateful for the facelessness of radio, because he can’t imagine how lame his expression must be right now.

Finally, after what seems like a lifetime, she puts him out of his misery. “I see,” she says, and it’s not so much a statement as a demand to know why he thinks she should care.

Alak raises a hand. “I’m just sayin’. Parents, right?”

Irisa’s stare turns coldfire-dangerous. He’s used to that by now, of course, all the glaring and the narrowed eyes and the hissed threats, but it’s way more lethal now it is when he plays music she doesn’t like (or, worse still, when he plays music she does like but doesn’t want to admit). It’s the kind of glare that says he’s going to end up dismembered for real if he doesn’t back off right now, the kind of glare that says she’s really pissed off and not even a little bit kidding about it. He’s seen that look before, and he wishes he was still as smart as he was that first day on the street, when they ran into each other and he apologised even though it wasn’t his fault. He wishes he could do that now, too — tell her she knows where to find him and just run the hell away before things get unpleasant — but he can’t, and not just because he has a set to finish.

They’ve been doing this for a while now, this thing that’s not really a thing, and they’ve kind of bonded a little. At least, he thinks they have, anyway; what she thinks is a whole separate issue, but she’s not taken a knife to his junk again (or, well, not more than once or twice a day, anyway, and that’s a pretty big trade-up on the rest of the town), so he suspects she probably feels the same. She’s stubborn, though, and sometimes he says or does something that cuts a little too close for her, and it’s like he can feel the delicate little thing they have taking a dozen steps backwards every time he does. They’re making progress, they really are, but it’s so slow that he’d almost want to tear his hair out in frustration if it didn’t look so damn good. It makes him want to yell, shake her and tell her to quit being so damn _Irath_ about it… but at the same time, it fuels his own stubbornness, a completely different kind to hers, and it makes him stick with it, stick with her, stick with this thing, because he knows — he looks at her sometimes, and he just knows — that they really are getting somewhere.

So, no, he can’t do the whole polite-apology thing, can’t duck his head and let her think she’s beaten the stupidity out of him. He can’t let her go, even though he knows she’s got teeth that she’s not the least bit afraid to use, and he realises as he pushes back the rickety old DJ’s chair that he doesn’t want to. Let her bite him, if she wants to; it can’t hurt any worse than the way she talks about his music.

He opens his mouth to say something, and it’s only when no sound comes out that he realises he has no idea what he wanted to tell her. Not that it matters, anyway, because she’s cutting him off before he can offer so much as a squeak; he really should have seen that coming, he supposes, but he didn’t, and now he’s just kind of floundering helplessly, gawping and looking like an idiot while she crosses the space between them and grabs him by the collar so violently that he feels his circulation cutting off.

“Just play your songs,” she snarls.

So he does. He spins back to his station, slips on some super-sentimental Sensoth shtako, and considers it a win that he can still breathe when she finally lets him go.

*

“You don’t know anything.”

It’s two days later, and the door is barely open before she’s storming towards him. He can tell that she’s mad — worse than mad, flat-out furious — but he can also kind of tell that it’s not really because of anything he’s said or done. She’s just mad, aimless and directionless, and Alak’s an easy target. Part of him wants to ask if she’s okay, if something has happened, if she needs to talk… but he values his vital organs way too much for that, and for once he’s actually kind of genuinely scared.

He scrambles out of his chair and backs away, stumbling as he hits the wall, but she keeps right on coming like he never moved at all. She doesn’t grab him this time, at least, and she doesn’t pull out a weapon either, but that’s not really much of a comfort when he knows as well as he does that she could rip him to pieces in a heartbeat if she wanted to, and probably just by looking at him. Well, maybe not quite, but it’d be a close thing, and anyway she’s dangerous enough that it’s no consolation at all that she’s not evne touching him yet. He feels kind of like a rabbit cornered in the high-beams of a tricked-out roller, like he’s going to die but there’s nothing he can do about it, and all he can do as she closes in is wonder where the hell he went so wrong that it all came down to this.

“You don’t know _anything_.”

It’s the same words, but there’s a marked difference in the way that she says it this time. Her eyes are still angry, wild and dangerous, and he can see the bloodlust and pain flicker like dying flames behind them, but there’s a tremor in her voice that wasn’t there just a few seconds earlier, a kind of weakening that would get him killed if he dared to mention it. It’s less of a demand this time, something close to a plea, and Alak’s more than a little taken aback by that because he’s pretty sure he’s never heard a plea from her before.

Truth be told, he’s actually never heard her do anything but snap and growl and hiss, and the sudden hitch in her voice takes him somewhat by surprise because he really thought she only had one way of saying anything. He tries to agree, to say anything he can that might make her feel a little less lost. Because, yeah, that’s exactly how she sounds, lost, like she’s drowning in something so deep she can’t see the bottom of it, like she’s clinging so desperately to the idea that he might be wrong about something, anything, some stupid shtako that doesn’t matter to either of them because thinking about that is easier than thinking about the stuff that really does matter. He wants to make it okay, to indulge her, to let them both cling to those stupid pointless things if it’ll help.

He wants to hug her, too, but he values his own limbs way too much to try.

“Okay,” he says instead, holding up his hands with a sigh. “You’re right. I don’t know anything.”

It’s not about the music; he knows that much. It’s about the way he’s tried to connect with her, the way he’s tried to make her see that she’s not the only one who maybe struggles with the whole identity thing. It’s about the way he wants to make her understand that he has issues with his parents too, that it’s not just an issue for Iraths raised by humans, it’s an issue for every damn kid who’s ever felt anything and every ignorant parent who can’t remember what that’s like. It’s not that he doesn’t know anything; it’s that he knows too much. He’s not wrong; he knows it and she knows it, and that’s what makes her so mad. He’s right, and she hates him for it.

Alak doesn’t know much about Irisa. He knows that she’s Nolan’s kid, or at least that they both act like she is — she may call him ‘Nolan’, but the way she looks at him says ‘daddy’ far louder than the word ever could — and that she thinks of ‘communication’ as an endless exchange of insults and violence. He knows she’s got a wild side, that it’s dangerous, and that she can’t quite control the violence he’s seen simmering inside her. And, okay, so maybe that really is the product of who she is, an alien kid raised by a human father; maybe it really is all about Irisa, like she wants to be. But then, maybe it’s not; maybe it’s just the unfortunate side-effect of being a teenager with a short fuse. Maybe it’s both. Hell, maybe it’s neither. Truth be told, Alak’s always been kind of chill; he doesn’t really know so much about the whole ‘urge to kill rising’ thing.

One thing he does know, though, is that she thinks she’s special. Whether she truly is or not, she’s convinced she is. She thinks she’s the only one who knows pain, the only one who’s ever been misunderstood, the only one who feels the way she does. She probably spends every waking minute thinking about that, hating on dear ol’ dad because he can’t or won’t understand, hating on the whole wide world because they’re not her and they’ll never know suffering like she does. Alak doesn’t pretend to know the first thing about Irathients or their precious culture, but he’s spent enough time with angry and angst-ridden teenagers to at least have some idea how that part of her works. She’s young, and she thinks she’s the centre of the world; some part of it, at least, is really as simple as that. And he knows — because he’s been there too — that the only thing that’s going to make her feel better right now is if he pretends that’s all true.

So he does. He takes the hit to his ego gladly and easily, though he can see by the look on her face that she’s not buying it. They both know he’s right, but he can play the game as professionally as she can, and he knows that when she finally snaps out of this deranged Irath hyper-rage of hers she’ll be grateful.

For a couple of moments, all she does is stare at him. She’s got those crazy eyes going on, that unearthly stare that makes him feel almost like Christie must do every time she comes over to his place and realises just how much of an alien he really is. Alak’s not like most Castis; he doesn’t really have anything against anyone. Human, Irath, Sensoth, whatever; why should it make any difference to him? He doesn’t care about the Pale Wars or anything of that other shtako that’s caused rift upon rift to open up between his people and everyone else in the known universe, and why should he? It’s his parents’ war, or else his grandparents’, but it’s sure not his. That’s old stuff, old shtako and old wounds that an old generation can’t seem to let go, and it’s got nothing to do with him. All he wants is freedom to live, love, and listen to the best music he can scavenge on this hollowed-out planet. That’s not so much to ask, is it?

And really, he kind of suspects that if she really thought about it, maybe Irisa would realise that’s all she wants too. But Alak knows she’s never going to figure that out for herself with Nolan breathing down her neck trying to make her more human and those freaky-ass spirit rider Iraths trying to make her more like one of them. It seems that everyone in town is trying to turn her into something else, something different, and maybe she is like them — maybe she’s got human in her, maybe she’s Irath to the bone, maybe, maybe maybe — but what does it matter when none of them will stop their yelling long enough to ask what she wants to be? Is it any wonder that the poor girl has no idea who or what she is?

Finally, she pulls away, and it’s only when she stalks back to her usual corner and hunches back down that he realises she didn’t actually touch him at all.

“You don’t know anything,” she says again. Alak watches nervously as she draws one of her blades and starts sharpening it. “You don’t know anything about me, and you sure as shtako don’t know anything about music.”

She’s focused now, head down and body tight with concentration, and he kind of wants to say something else, but at the same time he doesn’t want to shatter the moment now that she’s finally found a kind of peace (and no, it doesn’t surprise him even a little bit that the closest thing to ‘peace’ she’s capable of finding comes in the form of sharp and pointy things). He sighs, and drops back down into his seat. The current song is winding down now, anyway, and he’s got a job to do.

He’s thinking of picking out something mellow, a soft-sung folk tune or some bluesy jazz, something to soothe the savage beast scraping furiously at the side of her blade, scratching out space for the ghosts in her head, shaping her thoughts into violence like she does so well. He wants something calming, as much for his own spirit as for hers, but something stops him before he can hit play. He thinks back, remembers his own mood swings, those moments of unfettered hatred for the world and everything in it, that angst-driven teenage fury, the need for violence and the strange desire to commune with his own inner pain. Folk and blues won’t help, he realises. Irisa doesn’t want something sweet and mellow; she doesn’t want to be soothed at all. She wants rage and pain, violence and fury. She wants to be angry, and she wants Alak to tell her it’s okay to be angry.

Alak smiles to himself. Even if there’s nothing else she’ll let him do for her right now, at least she’ll let him give her that.

“Hold on to your eardrums, Defiance,” he announces into the microphone, “’cause we’re about to get loud.”

It’s an old-world Earth song, a weather-beaten heavy metal thing about screaming your heart out. It’s a cliche, sure, but cliches exist for a reason, and Alak can’t help noticing that, for the first time, Irisa doesn’t whine about how much it sucks.

*

Her mood doesn’t improve, but at least she stops taking it out on him. For the next couple of days, she just sits in her corner and watches him work, commenting every now and then about how much better everything would be if he just let her take over and play some real music.

Actually, he’s not entirely convinced that it wouldn’t be, but even though she’s no longer actively threatening parts of his anatomy, he’s not sure that he trusts her around his precious equipment… and he definitely doesn’t trust her around his precious vinyl.

They slide back into their usual routine with surprising ease; he spins his music, and she tells him how much she hates it, and it’s like that brief unsuccessful moment of attempted connection never happened at all. He can’t quite shake it from his thoughts, though, but he knows better than to dwell on it. Irisa is clearly not here to ‘connect’ with him (and he kind of finds himself wondering every now and then whether she’s actually capable of connecting with anyone at all). He’s not entirely sure what she is here for, since it’s not the music either, but she’s made the boundaries pretty clear and Alak will just have to respect them.

So, because he’s nothing if not persistent, he tries a different approach. Never hurt anyone to branch out a little, after all. He spins a cool little Castithan ditty, one of his favourites, and cuts her off with a roll of his eyes before she has a chance to say anything snide about it.

“Nope,” he warns as she bares her teeth and readies one of her usual quips. “Don’t even think about it.”

She doesn’t ask why, but when he tries to explain, she listens. She studies him, attentive with the same kind of feral fascination that she gives her blades as he talks her through it, tells her all about the song, about what it means and how it makes him feel, about why he loves it and why she’s not allowed to give it her usual cutting treatment. She doesn’t interrupt as he speaks, which surprises him, and so he goes on, pushing as far as she’ll let him, seeing how far they can go before she gets uncomfortable. 

Once he’s exhausted the song, he steps up a little. He tells her about Casti music in general, its history and its trends, what was hot fifty years ago and what’s hot now, the styles he likes and the styles he doesn’t. Everything he can think of, and he finds that he really enjoys it. More surprisingly than that, though, Irisa seems to enjoy it, too. He figures she probably doesn’t have much exposure to the music of his home-world; an Irath raised by a human probably doesn’t get much access to other-world stuff, and so he takes it upon himself to educate her.

It works, in a strange kind of way, and there’s an odd kind of reluctance in the way that she feeds him the obligatory line about how much she doesn’t care about his stupid Castithan shtako. They both know she only says it at all because she feels like she has to — she can’t possibly let him think she’s interested in anything he has to say, even if she is — and there’s a hollowness to her voice when she does that Alak takes great pride in hearing. She won’t ever admit it, of course, but her voice says what her words doesn’t, that maybe she does care, and a whole lot more than she actually wants to, and in the moment before she snaps off the words she looks almost miserable.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he says lightly, to soften the moment, but she hisses through her teeth in a way that tells him he’s said exactly the wrong thing.

“No,” she growls; she’s quietly angry like she usually is, but if he didn’t know better he’d swear that the rage in her voice is not directed at him at all. “I wouldn’t.”

He frowns. There’s a sudden sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, the inescapable feeling that he’s said something really stupid, that he’s done something terribly wrong, that he’s hurt her somehow even though that was the last thing he’d wanted, but he can’t fathom what or when or how. Is it so terrible that he wanted to share this stuff with her? Music is the one thing uniting them, isn’t it? Through all the ways they can’t communicate, it’s the one tiny patch of common ground they have, the only place where they can both stand at the same time and be heard. It doesn’t matter that they never agree on anything, because that’s not what it’s about; music the one thing they can actually talk about without reservation on either side. Why would she suddenly feel insulted by it now?

Suddenly, he finds himself floundering, struggling desperately to find his footing, scrabbling numbly for something to say, something that might undo whatever he’s done (and he’s still not even sure what that is, anyway). He only knows that she’s getting that wounded-animal look on her face again, the one that drew him to her in the first place, the sorrow in the colours of her eyes that she hides so expertly behind feral violence and Irath anger. He hates that look, but he’s kind of lost to its thrall at the same time. It’s not like Irisa is the kind of chick who would drop hints about what’s bothering her; no, she’s more the kind to throw sharp and pointy objects at him and then shake her head when he wonders why he’s suddenly bleeding. She’s dangerous, and he’s trapped.

Suddenly, out of the blue, he really wants to call Christie and tell her how much he appreciates everything about her.

“Well, y’know,” he manages, and he knows it’s wrong before he even starts, but he can’t stop himself from saying it anyway. “If you want to learn, I could always lend you some of my—”

“Why would I want to?” she demands, furious.

He takes a beat to figure out how he wants to play this, then shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe because you like to rag on my taste, and you can’t really do that unless you get the full flavour first.”

“Yes I can,” she says, but she doesn’t sound nearly as sure of herself as she normally does. “I can do what I want.”

Against his better judgement, he rolls his eyes. “Y’know, when someone offers to do something nice for you, would it kill you to just take it and say ‘thanks’ once in a while? You don’t have to listen to it if you don’t want to, I just figured you might want to expand your horizons beyond Nolan’s old-world Earth junk and those lame tribal chants that you Iraths call ‘music’.”

She’s up and across the room in half a second flat, and before he even knows what’s hit him he’s reeling and his jaw feels like it’s just been set on fire. She’s not quite as tall as he is, but she’s a firecracker and her presence seems to take up way more space than his does; suddenly, he finds himself bracing with both hands against the wall to keep from stumbling as she pulls her fist back and slugs him a second time.

“You don’t know anything about my people,” she spits.

That’s when it hits him. Not her fist this time, though that follows soon after, but the sudden reality of what she’s actually telling him, the words she’s not saying. It crashes down over him with way more force than anything her knuckles could dish out, and he reels against it like a ship caught in a hurricane.

She’s not pissed because he’s offering to share the music of his people with her. She’s pissed because she doesn’t know enough about her own to offer the same in return.

It’s so obvious, now that he actually stops to think about it, and he can see it right there as clear as daylight when he looks into her eyes. Because she’s looking at him now, staring so hard that he can see himself reflected in those ethereal Irath irises of hers, but she’s not really seeing him at all. Her gaze unfocused, almost dizzy, and it’s so damn obvious that he wants to smack himself upside the head (and save her the trouble of doing it for him) for not seeing it until now. She’s not seeing him, because she’s not really talking to _him_ at all. She’s talking to herself, cussing herself out and beating up on herself, like teenagers do and like Iraths probably do too. She’s furious, but all of her rage and her violence and all the rest of it has absolutely nothing to do with him.

She hates herself. She hates that she’s an Irath talking to a Casti, hates that she’s not Irath enough to see how wrong it is to be talking to a Casti at all. She hates that she doesn’t hate him, hates that she can’t fully understand why she’s supposed to. That much, he supposes he already knew, because he’s been kind of feeling the same way himself for a while now, at least in part.

Alak Tarr isn’t exactly the most traditional Casti in Defiance, but his parents are probably in the top three on that list, and he’s been raised around bigotry and self-righteousness all his life. Irathients still leave a bad taste in his mouth, for all that he’s tried not to let himself be touched by any of his father’s bigotry, and he knows that Irisa has been struggling with the same issue herself. She doesn’t really understand it like he does — how can she, when she’s not been raised among her own people? — but she knows enough to know that she’s supposed to hate him, that her people hate his and that she is honour-bound to feel as they feel. Generations of hatred aren’t washed away so easily, even for those too young to remember the reasons why and Alak and Irisa are both at that awkward in-between stage where it still feels fresh even when they don’t really know what ‘it’ is. Alak, at least, was raised on hate and taught the basics; he suspects that’s a whole lot more than Irisa ever had.

It’s no secret, even to an Irath raised by a human, that they shouldn’t be friends, and maybe that’s why they’re not. At least, not in the traditional sense of the word. They get along, sort of, by not getting along at all, find common ground in their disagreements, and that’s as close to friendship as either of them feel comfortable with. Alak’s too cool and easy-going to think too hard about what it means, how dangerous it would be if they pushed those boundaries any further, but he knows it tears Irisa up, that she can’t switch off the prejudices of a history she can’t fully comprehend as easily as he can switch off his parents’ archaic attitudes.

But it’s not just about that. Because she’s not really Irath, either. The old hatred is there, but it’s locked away in a part of her that she doesn’t really know how to access. She was raised by a human, and though Alak can tell that Nolan didn’t exactly raise her to _be_ a human, there’s only so much a geezer like him could possibly know about Irathient culture. Also, Irisa’s a stubborn and angry young woman, and Alak figures she probably wasn’t the kind of kid who’d want to sit still for a history lesson, even if Nolan had schooled himself well enough to teach her properly. Not that that’s going to stop her blaming the old guy anyway, he supposes, and that right there is the other issue she’s struggling with just now: the part where she kind of hates her dad a little bit too.

Of course it’s not Nolan’s fault; Alak knows it, and Irisa must know it too. They both know that she sure wouldn’t have thanked Nolan if he hadn’t picked her up and taken her in when he did. War orphans didn’t have the best lives, Alak knows, and for all that Irisa is still so ignorant about, she’s smart enough to get that her life’s a whole lot better than it could have been. But knowing it doesn’t help her right now, caught as she is between the two worlds of her people — the people she was born to and the one she was raised by — and yeah, Alak gets that too. He’s never questioned his own identity, never seen himself as anything other than a Casti, never once imagined he’d become anything more or less than what was expected of him by the creed of his people, the desires of his mother and the will of his father. It’s always been written right there in stone for him, plain and simple and straightforward, and he wonders if sometimes that’s all Irisa sees when she looks at him.

She doesn’t see the rest of it, he knows. She doesn’t see Christie.

Irisa is selectively blind, like so many are. She sees what she wants to see, the dutiful Castithan son, the boy who knows his place in the world, the teenage youth playing at being a rebel. She doesn’t see the part of Alak’s soul that hates what he’s doing to his parents, to Christie’s family, to everyone they both care about just because he had the bad sense to fall in love with her. She doesn’t hear the songs of his heart, the conflict and the trouble it’s caused, the pain in Rafe McCawley’s eyes or the disappointment in Datak’s. She doesn’t see any of that, and even if she did, she wouldn’t think it compared to what she’s been through, what she still goes through every day of her life. She would glare at him if she saw it, mock him with very real cruelty and threaten his life if he dares to think that his silly romantic feelings are worth even a basic comparison to her own troubles. She’ll judge him, because she judges everyone, and dismiss his experiences as unworthy — not because they are, but because she wants them to be. Because she wants to be the only one who’s ever felt anything at all, the only one who’s ever been lonely and confused, the only lost soul to ever wonder if they belong anywhere.

Alak could tell her that she’s not. He could drill it into her brain that she’s not alone, that everything he feels is exactly the same as what she does, that it’s not less because it’s new, that it’s not obsolete because it’s about love, that her pain is not worth more because she’s lived with it for longer. He could take her by the shoulders and shake her until she sees it, treat her with the same violence that she treats him, see how she likes it when someone pushes back. He could throw himself on her, knowing she’ll throw herself right back, wrestle and fight each other until the whole arch comes crashing down around them and she has no choice to realise that the destruction was the product of them both, not just of her. He could do a million things if he wanted to, but he doesn’t.

Because he’s actually kind of serious about being her ‘friend’, whatever that means for two people like them. Even now, he’s really serious about helping her if she’ll let him, about being someone she can talk to if she needs to talk, or someone she can just hang with and chill out if that’s all she wants. He’s serious about all this time they’ve been spending together, about the music they fight about, the hours they kill just staring each other down and rolling their eyes. He’s serious about all of it, just like he was on that first day when he told her she knew where to find him. He’s really, really serious about the way he wants that sadness behind her eyes to go away, or at least to lessen a little bit, and he’s serious about being the one to make that happen. And if she really wants to believe that she’s the only punk-ass delinquent who’s ever had daddy issues, the only kid who’s ever been confused about who they were or where they came from, the only one who’s ever felt anything bad at all… if that’s really what she wants, then he’ll let her believe that. He’ll back down and pretend he doesn’t understand, because he really truly does.

And anyway, he’s become something of an expert in letting stuff drop since she stormed into his life, so it doesn’t take too much of an effort to drop this issue as well. He adds the blurry cultural divide to the ever-growing list of things he’s not allowed to discuss with her (on pain of decapitation, what else?) and deals with her rejection the same way he deals with everything else she throws at him: by spinning his tunes.

This time, though, he doesn’t make any announcement. He doesn’t offer his usual witty repertoire, doesn’t engage the listeners out there, doesn’t say anything at all. He just slips on a disc full of Irath chants and lets it tell its own story.

Maybe Irisa does know a little about her people’s music; maybe she even knows more about it than she thinks she does. Maybe she just doesn’t feel like she knows enough, or as much as she should, or one of a hundred other things. Or maybe she really doesn’t know anything at all. Alak isn’t sure, and he’s definitely not about to ask. He just spins the stuff all afternoon, Irath chant after Irath chant without interruption, and lets her decide what she wants to take from it.

After all, isn’t that the whole point of music?

*


	2. Chapter 2

The next time he sees her, she surprises him.

He’s about an hour into his set, and he’s just starting to think she won’t show up at all. He’s toying lazily with the mic when she walks in, flipping through his record collection and wondering if there’s anything he can play that might catch Christie’s attention and make her smile. That’s the one downside he’s found of all this time spent with Irisa; it’s great that they’re hanging out, but he’s distracted, and he’s starting to feel a little bad about how much the music is starting to make him think of the wrong chick.

It’s not that he’s thinking unfaithful thoughts or anything like that. Of course not; he’s a one-woman man, and always will be. Even if he hadn’t heard the whispers about her and that Tommy LaSalle, fact is he just doesn’t think of Irisa like that. In part, he supposes, because it’s kind of hard to think dirty thoughts about someone who makes a habit of threatening his junk, but mostly because he really, really loves Christie. She has his heart, completely, and there’s no room in it for anyone else, least of all an Irath. (A human is one thing, but he can just picture the look on his dad’s face if he came home with one of _them_ on his arm). And yet, for all that his heart is Christie’s and hers alone, he still can’t deny that his treacherous brain has been thinking in Irathient lately, rather more than it should.

Irisa tests him. She makes him question his taste, makes him dissect the chords and the rhythms and the basslines of all his favourite songs. She makes him appreciate the stuff he loves on a whole new level, and of course he finds it a little addictive. Thinking about her, wondering what she’d think of a given tune, trying to figure out what he can spin to make her glare just a little less after he’s said or done something stupid. It’s a totally different kind of feeling to the flutter that settles in his chest when he thinks of Christie, but it’s inescapable just the same. And, yeah, okay, he’s man enough to admit it: he’s been feeling guilty.

Not that Christie minds; they’ve not talked about it, but Alak suspects she knows just the same. She shows up at the arch sometimes, too, but never when Irisa is there, and for all his dude-shaped ignorance Alak is not quite stupid enough to believe it’s by coincidence. She’s Christie; she’s smart and perfect, and he’d bet his dad’s liro that she knows exactly what he’s doing, and why he’s doing it. His girl’s not stupid; however traitorous Alak’s brain feels, Christie has no reason to feel threatened by this friendship thing with Irisa, and she knows it.

But just because she gets it, that’s no excuse for the way he’s stopped trawling his record collection for songs that will make her smile, and he’s about halfway through the process of digging up the perfect one when Irisa stalks in, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the speakers, in that way she has of announcing her presence without having to actually say anything out loud.

He looks up, startled out of his reverie. “Hey. What’s up?”

She quirks a brow, but doesn’t answer. She doesn’t settle in her usual spot, either, and Alak quirks a brow as she stalks across the floor and gets right up in his face without so much as a word. There’s an intensity on her face, a kind of urgency that’s not like her usual aggression at all, and he’s just about to ask if she’s okay (and so what if she punches him for daring to show a little concern?) when he realises that both of her hands are full.

“Whoa,” he manages, and all of a sudden she looks quite infuriatingly pleased with herself. “Is that—”

“It’s old-world vinyl,” she says carelessly, thrusting the whole lot at him, then shrugs her shoulders. “Apparently.”

It sure is, and it’s really good stuff, too. There’s about six or seven albums in total, and they’re all classics. _Real_ classics, that is, the kind that’s practically the stuff of legend. These albums are so old that Alak never imagined he’d even see them, much less have them right here in his own two hands, the tattered paper covers and the grooved records, the solid strength of them startling after so many decades, so real and pure and tangible and right there. It’s amazing, and for a second or two, he doesn’t know what to say. His tongue is all tied up in knots, and his mind can’t process anything more complicated than the sight of a rainbow refracted through a triangle.

“Where did you find these?” he squeaks at last, because she’s clearly waiting for a response; he’s so excited he doesn’t even care that his voice has gotten quite ridiculously high. “Do you have any idea how rare they are?”

Irisa shrugs, rolling her eyes as he caresses the album covers like they’re holy artefacts. “They’re Nolan’s.”

Alak wants to facepalm at that, because of course they are. “You stole the lawkeeper’s record collection?”

Just like that, the self-satisfaction is gone and she’s scowling again. “I thought you’d like them,” she huffs.

“I do!” He backtracks quickly, hugging one or two of the LPs to his chest. “It’s just…” He flails a little; having to explain why stealing is wrong to someone wearing a lawkeeper’s badge feels kind of weird, but at the same time, given who he’s dealing with, it’s not exactly a huge surprise to find that she has a lenient view of what’s right. “It’s just… won’t he miss them?”

“Not if he’s doing his job,” she replies easily. “But maybe that’s too much to expect of him.” For a second or two, she seems almost amused. “He’s not the best influence.”

It’s more than she’s said about her relationship with her father in all the time they’ve spent together, and Alak is more than a little hesitant to say anything more in case he breaks whatever spell the vinyl might have cast over her, whatever has happened to make her drop her guard even this tiny little bit. So he pretends she hasn’t said anything, pretends the words never came, just beams like the excited kid he is right now and takes out one of the records. “Your old man’s got great taste.”

“Knew you’d think that,” Irisa mutters, like she can’t think of a worse insult in all the world than liking the same music as Lawkeeper Nolan.

“Well, have you seen them?” Alak demands; he’s playing into her hands, and he knows it, but he doesn’t care. “The Beatles! Pink Floyd! Led Zeppelin! You know how much scrip these things are worth?”

Irisa flinches a little at that, like he’s hit a sore spot. “He refuses to sell them,” she says.

“Well, duh,” Alak says before he can stop himself; he’s skating on thin ice and he knows it, but his brain has been fried by the albums in his hand and there’s not enough self-awareness left in it to stop his mouth from making sounds that it really shouldn’t be. “Because they’re priceless!”

“Not when you’re starving,” Irisa says quietly, and bares her teeth.

Alak doesn’t have a response to that, and he’s honestly a lot more focused on the treasures in front of him than on her sad story. Maybe on another day, he would press her about that, look hard for an opening, harness his mother’s powers of manipulating a moment, and drawn some experience out of her. But this isn’t another day, and he can’t think well enough to even try. For the first time, he thinks he’d probably side with Nolan on this one; no matter how bad life got, if he had a real-life copy of _Dark Side Of The Moon_ or _Sgt. Pepper_ sitting in the back of his roller, on _vinyl_ , he’d gladly go hungry for a few weeks too.

“Can I…?” he asks, but he can’t quite find the courage to finish the question.

Luckily for him, Irisa doesn’t particularly care what he wants to do, and she shrugs her indifference. “If you want.”

So he does. He pulls the old records out of their sleeves, one by one, careful and a little frightened, like they’re made of pure solid coldfire, like they’ll set fire to the arch and everything in it if he’s not careful. It’s a surreal moment, almost holy, and he can’t stop his fingers from trembling as he holds them up, watching as the flickering light bounces off the ridges and grooves, fractured moments of sound caught like bugs in celluloid. They’re real and they’re here and they’re in his hands. _His_ hands! He, Alak Tarr, has these rarest of all treasures in his hands! And it’s all her doing. Irisa, the half-crazed Irathient lunatic, the wild child lawkeeper’s daughter who hates everything except violence, the punk-ass little loudmouth that he’s supposed to hate too, just because she’s not like him; it’s all her doing, all because of her that these priceless artefacts are in his hands, all because of her that his voice is cracking and wavering as he fumbles for the mic and announces to the whole of Defiance that they should hold onto something, that they’re in for a real treat.

It’s all because of her, and the look on her face tells him that, though has no idea just how precious these records really are, she somehow understands exactly how much they mean to him.

*

A couple of days later, he runs into Lawkeeper Nolan in the street.

It feels all kinds of weird weird, so similar to his first run-in with Irisa that it almost makes his head spin, but Alak is nothing if not a master at playing it cool, and he doesn’t let the reaction show on his face. Nolan studies him for a beat or two, like he’s looking for something to haul him in for, or at least some half-assed excuse to interrogate him for no reason at all. He’s got nothing, of course, and after a few long moments, he gives up and holds out a hand in a cursory feint at formality.

“Alak.”

It’s a forced politeness, way more about the necessity of keeping up appearances than anything else. Alak would be kind of offended by the curtness of it, but he knows it’s not really about him at all. The lawkeeper doesn’t really dislike him, at least not for anything he himself has done. He’s just a kid, and while that’s reason enough to piss off an authority figure, Alak knows that Nolan’s not that kind of guy. It’s not Alak he has issues with at all, but his parents — because, yeah, everyone in Defiance has issues with his parents — and so he’s understandably kind of cautious any time he runs into their precious little spawn. Alak’s record is mostly trouble-free, and he knows that Nolan grudgingly respects him for that, but neither of them are stupid enough to think their conversations will ever be anything more than distastefully civil.

Given how brief the moment is, Alak has a sneaking suspicion that good old Daddy Nolan has no idea how much time the town’s resident Romeo has been spending with his darling daughter. If he did, Tarr family or no, he would’ve tried a whole lot harder to find something to haul him in for.

“Lawkeeper Nolan,” Alak says in return, shaking the extended hand like a certified human, and tilting his head with the kind of grin that could melt butter.

“Been meaning to catch you,” Nolan says. He waits a moment, like he’s hoping to psych him out or something, but Alak’s too smart for him, and doesn’t so much as blink. Nolan shrugs, as if to say _‘eh, it was worth a shot’_ , and presses on. “You’ve got some pretty good taste for a good-for-nothing kid.”

Alak grins, even wider on the inside than the outside. “Well, someone’s gotta teach this town what’s hot and what’s not,” he smirks.

Nolan’s eyes narrow at that, like he’s trying to look into Alak’s soul, like they’re gambling and he’s searching for a bluff. Apparently, he hasn’t had too many dealings with Castis, because any idiot could’ve told him that he’s not going to find what he’s looking for. Alak may not be traditional, but he’s still got Casti blood in his veins, and if he doesn’t want the human to see something, then that human is never going to see it. Besides, it’s not like Nolan’s being subtle about the way he’s grilling him; it’s obvious he’s looking for a flash of guilt, a bead of sweat or an unconscious little eye-twitch, anything that might give him away as hiding something, but Alak has won more card games in his short life (human and Votan alike, thank you very much) than Nolan’s probably even played in his. So he likes to think, anyway, but even if that’s not strictly true, he’s sure as shtako not about to let his bluff get called by a lawkeeper with a good hand.

“That record you played the other day,” Nolan says, and he’s watching Alak’s every move like a predator stalking its prey. “Pink Floyd, was it?”

Alak grins, slow and lazy. “Sure was,” he replies cheerfully. “You’ve got pretty good taste yourself, sir.”

Nolan grunts, but ignores that. “Sounded like the real thing, too.”

Alak lets his grin grow a little wider, and a lot cockier. “Got a pretty good ear too,” he says; it’s all the affirmation Nolan’s going to get. “Felt like shakin’ things up a little. This town is half-dead, you know.”

“Gotta be pretty rare,” Nolan says, narrowing his eyes. “Where’d you get it from?”

Alak shrugs. “I get a lot of stuff,” he evades coolly. “You can’t possibly expect me to remember where it all comes from.” He rolls his shoulders, and makes a show of counting. “Lets see… I pick up some old gems in the market now and then, and there’s my own personal collections of course… sometimes some good stuff gets sent in by appreciative listeners…” He gives a boyish wink, knowing perfectly well that Nolan will see right through it. “Mayor Rosewater’s a big fan, for example. She sends me all kinds of stuff. Of course, most of it isn’t fit for consumption, but what’s a boy to do…”

Nolan locks eyes with him, staring him down. For a few seconds, neither of them says anything; Nolan doesn’t move because he’s staring too hard, and Alak doesn’t move because he’s afraid of giving himself away. It’s like one of those old-world nature documentaries with the big wild cats and the tiny helpless bunnies, only neither of them is ready to lay down and be the bunny. Nolan clearly wants a confession, but Alak’s not about to give him one. It’s not even about the records any more, really (it wouldn’t be the first time Alak Tarr got in trouble for bootlegging, after all, and it sure won’t be the last), but what they represent. It’s about the trust Irisa placed in letting him see them, letting him hold them and hear them and spin them on the airwaves. Alak may not know much about the oh-so-complicated relationship between the lawkeeper and his daughter, but he’s pretty sure that thieving is pretty bad in most family scenarios, and he’s not about to rat out his not-quite-friend-(more-like-music-buddy) when she was just trying to do something nice in the only way she knew how.

After a long and uncomfortable silence, Nolan finally backs down. It’s hard to tell whether it’s because he’s slowly realising he won’t get anything out of Alak by glaring at him, or whether he’s seen the truth after all and respects the kid for stepping up and protecting his daughter when he knows a confession would have got her in trouble as well as him. Either way, Alak doesn’t particularly care; the big bad lawkeeper steps down, and that’s all that matters.

“Hey,” he says, milking his victory a little with the cocksure arrogance of a young punk who knows they’ve got away with a crime. “If you got any requests, feel free to call in. Pretty sure we can dig up something in the archives that’s good for old-world geezers like you.”

“Watch your tongue,” Nolan says, though Alak can tell that he’s at least partly kidding now. “And move along, or I’ll haul you in for loitering.”

Never one to push his luck, even when he knows he can, Alak does as he’s told.

*

“Your dad’s pretty cool, y’know.”

Irisa hisses. “Yours is an idiot.”

She probably expects him to be offended by that, but he’s not. Honestly, he kind of agrees with her, not that he’s brave enough to admit it out loud. And anyway, he’s already told her that they don’t get along (though, really, what kid ever gets along with their parents?), so it’s not exactly new information that, at least some of the time, he thinks his dad is an idiot too. Still, Irisa’s not exactly a talkative girl most of the time, and those four words are more than she’s said all afternoon, so he supposes he should cut her some slack for that.

Besides, at least she tried to use words this time, instead of just tossing her blades at him. He’ll be the first to admit that it’s a weird kind of progress, but it’s progress just the same, and that’s gotta be worth a point or two.

*

What Alak has with Christie is perfect. They’ve got this whole ‘forbidden love’ thing going on, which is always kind of exciting (in a morbid sort of way), but it’s not just about that. What they’ve got is perfect, because Christie is perfect. He loves her like crazy, like no kid his age should ever feel about someone, because they’re so young and so stupid and he really, really wants to just give up everything he was raised, everything he is, everything that has ever meant anything to him, just throw it all away and be what she wants him to be.

But then, that’s the thing: she doesn’t actually want him to be anything. She doesn’t want him to be human, doesn’t want him to renounce his Casti heritage or any of that stuff that his folks are so worried about. She doesn’t want him because he’s Casti or in spite of the fact that he’s Casti, or anything like that. She just wants him because he’s _him_ , because he’s Alak and for some crazy reason that’s enough for her. She loves him for who he is, for himself, even though they both know she’ll never truly understand what that is. It’s all kinds of insane, the way she loves him, but it works. It really, really works.

They don’t fight. Well, not really, and definitely not over anything that matters. They don’t fight, because they both know there’s no point; at the end of the day, she’ll always win. Of course she’ll win, because Alak couldn’t deny her anything even if he wanted to. He’d run out into the middle of an arkfall for her, stark naked if she asked him to, and there’s no way he’d ever let the sun go down when they’re pissed at each other. He tried to argue, once or twice when he actually kind of had opinions on something they were fighting about, but it never really stuck. Christie always wins, and she always will. Not because she expects to, or even because she’ll get mad or leave him if she doesn’t. Nothing like that. She wins because he loves her. And yeah, it works. They work, and they’re perfect.

But then, maybe that’s why. Maybe it’s because they’re so perfect. Maybe it’s because he never fights with Christie that he enjoys fighting with Irisa so much. They clash on every possible level, and not just the obvious genetic one. A Casti and an Irath sharing space for more than two seconds, and by choice? It’s unheard of! Of course they’re going to fight, because what else are two people who are supposed to hate each other’s guts do in all that so-called time they’re spending together?

The answer, apparently, is talk about music. Which, okay, yeah, isn’t so much ‘talking’ as ‘trying not to kill each other for having dumb opinions’, but isn’t that all just semantics? Sure, they fight, but it’s got nothing to do with the colour of his skin or her eyes, nothing to do with the fact that his parents would see her dead without so much as blinking if she pissed them off in the wrong moment or on the wrong day, nothing to do with the way their ancestors treated each other in days long gone and mostly forgotten. It’s got nothing to do with what they were or where they come from, and everything to do with who they are.

It’s probably the understatement of the century, but he’ll go with it anyway: they’re both super-passionate people. Christie has got her own kind of passion too, of course, but it’s different, and her passion doesn’t often clash with Alak’s. At least, not in the same way as Irisa’s does. Christie is perfect, and when he’s with her, Alak kind of feels like maybe he might one day be perfect too. She makes him feel whole, complete, like the whole world is singing the same note, like everything is in perfect pitch, like nothing else matters. She makes him feel at peace. When he’s with Christie, it’s like she’s lighting him up within, and the passion that sparks in his chest is the blazing beauty of pure love.

Irisa is the opposite of that. She doesn’t make him feel, but she makes him think. She makes him angry, makes him rough and aggressive, makes him fight. She makes him defend himself, makes him stand up for everything that matters to him, everything he always took for granted, and she makes him question why it matters at all. It feels good, putting his passion into words, raising up his thoughts like weapons.

Irisa doesn’t make him feel perfect at all; she makes him feel cut up and rough-edged, like one of her precious blades, like he just has to touch the crumbling arch walls and they’ll fall to pieces right there under his fingertips. She makes him feel like it’s okay to be a loose cannon sometimes, like it’s okay to be wild and unhinged and young and angry, like it’s okay to be all those things that aren’t perfect. She reminds him of the life he’s giving up by being with Christie, reminds him of all those dirty dark places, the back alleys and bad decisions of youth and stupidity, the base joy of having nothing to say but saying it anyway, turning up the volume and screaming his heart out.

She’s older than him, but most of the time she seems so much much younger, wild and feral and Irath to the bone. It doesn’t matter that she’s been raised human; she’s one of them, as sure as anything, and there’s no escaping it for either of them. Alak can taste the Irathient dirt in every breath she takes, hear the violence of her people raw and rough in every word she spits out. It’s like blood, dark and rich in in everything she does, and it breaks the piece of his heart that Christie has made perfect to know that she doesn’t see it.

They don’t speak about it, of course, the conflicts of their people. They don’t talk about the fact that he’s a Casti and she’s Irath and really they should be killing each other instead of talking about _The Killing Moon_. It’s not exactly taboo — he’s pretty sure there’s no such thing as ‘taboo’ with them; anything is just as likely as anything else to light the fuse on that temper of hers — but they stay away from it just the same. It’s only recently, though, that Alak’s started to realise it’s not so much because of what those differences are, as it is because Irisa hates that she doesn’t understand them. He remembers the look on her face when they talked about Irathient music, how haunted and heartbroken she looked when she realised she didn’t know enough about her own people to form even a half-decent counter-argument against some rich little Casti boy.

Alak’s really not perfect, but Christie has shaped some parts of him to echo her. He’s more patient now, more thoughtful, maybe a little kinder.

He’s a whole lot more subtle, too, it seems, because when he starts peppering Irath classics in with his usual old-world fare, watching the way that Irisa goes suddenly quiet, he’s pretty sure she has no idea that it’s deliberate. Well, not yet, anyway, though he has no doubt she’ll figure it out in time.

He still doesn’t think about her in that way, not like he thinks about Christie, but he can’t deny there’s something beautiful in the way that she listens to the music of her people. She studies it, drinks down every word of every chant like it’s water and she’s dying, like her life depends on it, taking it in with her eyes closed and her soul bared… and yeah, she’s beautiful when she does that. There’s no shame in admitting it, and he does.

She’s so caught up in it all that she doesn’t even think to question why he’s suddenly playing so much from her people, their culture and their history bleeding out through the speaker system in songs that even Alak can’t deny have a pretty sweet sound. He’s not playing this stuff for his own benefit, and he’s sure as shtako not doing it for the benefit of the town; it’s not his taste at all, and he’s pretty sure if he keeps going he’s gonna start getting complaints, but he doesn’t care. The look on Irisa’s face when she gets all deep and thoughtful about it, the way she turns into something a little less feral, the way her head bows and her hair obscures her face, the way she breathes in the music like it’s everything she never had, everything that even Nolan couldn’t give her… well, it’s worth a few disgruntled listeners.

That right there, he decides, that’s Christie. That’s her influence, because this definitely isn’t the Alak Tarr of a few years ago. It’s not the Alak Tarr who would rebel blindly against his parents because it was expected of him, and then go crawling back because it was his duty. It’s not the Alak Tarr who laughed it up with his teenage Casti friends, drinking and fighting and messing up anyone — Irath or human or anything in between — stupid enough to try and crash their part. He can hardly remember that Alak Tarr at all any more, but he doesn’t quite recognise this one either. Not yet, anyway. Because it’s not quite him, either, at least not right now… but it’s a version of him that he might one day become. It’s a vision of the future, a glimpse into what he might grow into if Christie stays by his side and feeds him with her perfect patience. It’s the version of himself that he wants to be, not for his own sake, but for hers. It’s the Alak Tarr that Christie deserves, and it sings in his blood as he spins another Irath chant and watches as Irisa’s eyes darken and close.

He’s turning the radio into something new, reshaping the airwaves into an education. And, yeah, maybe it’s Irisa he’s doing it for… but it’s Christie’s voice he hears in every note.

*

He doesn’t expect a ‘thank you’, and he doesn’t get one.

It’s been a couple of days, and he’s too smart to underestimate her intelligence; she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t give anything away, but there’s no doubt in his mind that she’s figured it out by now. He’s not exactly been subtle, after all, and she’s damn sharp, even for an Irath. She’d have to be an idiot to miss the way he keeps his eyes on her every time he spins some new Irath piece, the way he smiles to himself in the moment after it finishes and her eyes flutter open again, that too-fleeting heartbeat when they’re still hazy and unfocused and he hopes she won’t notice him even though he knows she will. He’s got a hundred tells; it’s probably written all over his face, as clear as the tracks of his his fingerprints all over the mic stant, and after two full days of it, he has no doubt she knows. It’s not even a question.

But of course she doesn’t thank him. She doesn’t say anything at all and he’s actually kind of okay with that. He’s not doing this so she’ll be grateful — honestly, he never expected that she will be; he’s got her figured out well enough by now to know that she doesn’t take kindly to any kind of… well, kindness. But that’s okay, because it’s totally not what this is about.

What it’s about is the very same thing he felt when he stumbled into her on the street that day. That shadow of haunted sorrow behind her eyes, the lines on her face and the hollowed-out shadows of memory, things that even she doesn’t seem to know where they came from, the brand of something so much worse than a lack of identity. He can’t fix her, and he knows it; whatever’s going on inside her head, whatever she’s been through, it’s probably a whole lot more than a smart-mouthed rich kid from Defiance is ever gonna understand, no matter how dashing or handsome he is, and Alak respects her enough by now that he’s not going to waste either of their time trying. But he knows, too, what she feels about Nolan, the way she growls and hisses any time she talks about him, the way she hunches down and bares her teeth.

He can’t even begin to imagine how she feels, but at least now he’s starting to get his head around why. She’s an Irath in human clothes, an alien raised by someone who can’t possibly understand anything about what she was born, and she’s lost and confused and frustrated. So frustrated she could cry, he’s sure, but she’s young and rebellious and crying is one of the seven deadly sins of young rebels, and so of course she won’t do that. So, then, she hisses and spits and growls instead, steals priceless records from her dear ol’ dad and throws knives at teenage boys, kicks and screams, wages wars that nobody else is fighting and acts like the whole world is hers to tear to pieces. Alak totally gets that impulse; the only difference between them is that he was raised Casti.

Another time, another place, a different path, and he might have been her.

So easily, it could have been him instead. He could have been the confused alien tripping and stumbling down roads that weren’t made for his feet, the pale-faced weirdo beaten down for being different, the freak of nature. He could have been the one so completely out of touch with his own heritage that he’d find himself staring into the mirror one day and wondering if maybe he really is just a funny-looking human after all. It could have all been him — could be any alien kid unlucky enough to be born in this brave new world — and it strikes a chord in his chest every time he sees those Irath impulses stir in her, and that fleeting moment of stark panic as she realises she has no idea what they are or how to deal with them.

He can’t teach her how to be Irath; that’s way outside his comfort zone. He doesn’t know the first thing about being Irathient, about their people or their culture or anything at all, and what meagre tidbits he has picked up he’s pretty sure were tainted and blood-smeared by his family’s prejudices. He doesn’t have anything against the Irath people himself, but he’s been a Casti all his life and old hatred dies hard. He might not share his people’s attitudes, but he’s been surrounded by them all his life and he’s self-aware enough to know that he’s far from clean. A Castithan trying to teach an Irathient about her people would be more trouble than his whole life is worth.

So, no, he doesn’t try. He doesn’t pretend to understand who she is, and he definitely doesn’t try to help her understand it for herself. What he does understand, though, and what she’s slowly coming to understand as well, is music. Rich, vibrant, beautiful music. It’s in his veins, and it’s starting to flow through hers too, richer and truer than any blood. Casti or Irath; who cares when the rhythm is right?

And so, he uses that instead. Teaches her the sweet seductive whispers of her people through their music, their songs and their stories, lets their words hum and thrill in her veins, and takes his own kind of joy in watching it happen. She may be an Irath, but at least in this she is just like him — a hundred thousand lessons on history and language and war and culture couldn’t teach either of them half as much as one great song.

So, in his own way, he teaches her. And, though she doesn’t ever thank him, in her own way, he knows she’s grateful.

*

Christie comes to the arch the next day.

Irisa’s not there. Alak supposes Nolan’s got her running errands or something, but whatever the reason it doesn’t much surprise him; he’s never said a word about their little jam sessions to Christie, but somehow she always knows the days when Irisa isn’t there. Must be a chick thing, he figures, and shrugs it off.

She brings him lunch, because she’s just thoughtful that way, and he smiles and takes it and thanks her with the kind of sweet sincerity that defines all the ways she makes him a better person. He leans in close to the mic, tells the town that the arch has an extra-special visitor today, and dedicates a whole half-hour’s worth of schmoopy love songs to her. The smile on Christie’s face is reward enough, of course, but it’s a little extra sweet when he lets himself imagine the look of absolute disgust on Irisa’s face when she hears it.

Christie watches him, and she’s smiling too. She loves it when he does things like this for her, those tiny gestures that keep the spark of their romance alive. She brings him lunch, he brings her music, and they bring their hearts together.

They don’t talk much, at least not at first, but then that’s always been the way with them. They’re comfortable enough just being with each other, content simply to exist in the same space for a while, to take a little bit of time out of their separate lives to be together and reacquaint themselves with all the little reasons why they love each other so much. It’s more than enough that she’s here; they don’t need all that silly small-talk that others of her species seem so crazy about.

After a while, though, she breaks the comfortable silence with a sigh. It’s not a sad sigh, at least not exactly, just kind of contemplative, but it makes Alak’s ears prick up just the same, and he spins in his seat to face her. When Christie sighs like that, it usually means he needs to sit down, shut up, and start paying attention.

“She’s good for you,” she says, without warning or preamble.

For about half a second, Alak thinks about playing the fool. He could ask the obvious question — _“who?”_ — but he’s not stupid and he knows that would just make him look guilty. Which he’s not. He’s got nothing to hide, so why should he act like he does? He respects Christie too much for that, and he knows that she respects him too much to think that he’s been hiding this. They haven’t discussed it because they haven’t needed to, that’s all, and he has no reason to feel bad about it.

Honestly, he’s not even really surprised that she’s brought it up; Christie’s always been quicker than he’s ever given her credit for, and he kind of suspects she likes it that way. It’s kind of a Castithan way of thinking, that penchant for always knowing more than you let on, and he’s sure his mother would be oh so very proud to learn that her soon-to-be heart daughter is already that way inclined; there are few things in the world more dangerous than an underestimated woman, and as much as Alak likes to flatter himself that he’d never underestimate his woman’s brain-power, he’s still a dude at heart, and dudes are never quite as clever about that sort of thing as they think they are.

At least he’s smart enough to know that, he thinks, which is more than he can say for his friends.

“You think so?” he asks; he’s playing it cool, and not least of all because he actually feels cool.

“Yes,” she says simply. She watches him for a moment, then smiles. “She makes you think. And she challenges you. That’s always a good thing.”

He thinks so too, but it kind of surprises it to hear it from her; maybe he’s more of a dude than he’d care to admit, because he can’t quite shut up his brain before it rolls its eyes and thinks, _aren’t chicks supposed to be all pacifistic conflict-avoidy?_

He’s quick enough to keep himself from voicing it out loud, though, and covers the momentary lapse with a thoughtful half-shrug. “She’s fun,” he admits, and it’s completely true. “I mean, her taste in music really sucks, but it’s kind of cool to fight about it. You know?”

Of course she doesn’t know. If she did, he wouldn’t need Irisa at all. But she does get it; she may not know, but she understands, and that’s why she just smiles and ducks her head instead of pretending to say ‘yes’ when they both know she doesn’t mean it. It means more to him than the affirmation ever could, the way she doesn’t lie and doesn’t pretend, the way she is — in this as in everything else she does — completely straight with him, and when he catches her eye a moment or two later and sees the love reflected in them, it’s almost more than he can do to keep from crying a little bit. Oh, sure the tears would be boyish and charming tears, but they’d be tears just the same, and now he’s definitely more of a dude than he’d care to admit because _Casti boys don’t cry_ … and so he blinks them forcefully back. Casti boys don’t cry, and so Alak Tarr doesn’t cry.

What he does instead, of course, is probably even less manly than the tears would have been. He sweeps his girl up into his arms, holds her close and tight like he’s never going to let her go (and he isn’t)… and right there at the top of the arch, with Celine Dion blasting down over the town about how her heart always goes on, like they’re the stars of some lame old-world love story, he kisses her until neither of them can think straight.

*

Alak isn’t stupid enough to ever underestimate any of the women in his life.

He supposes he owes that to his mother… and, in his own way, to his dad as well. He’s seen the way they are with each other, but more importantly, he’s seen the way they are with other people.

Datak Tarr is one of the most important men in Defiance, and woe betide anyone who forgets that. He’s built a life and a reputation on saying the right words at the right time to the right people, and he’s terrifyingly good at that. Except it’s not the _words_ that he’s good with at all. Oh no. What Datak Tarr is really good at is making people _think_ that he’s good with words. It’s all total shtako, of course, shadowplays and puppetry and all the rest of it, like all good Castithan households. Spend just five minutes behind closed doors in the Tarr home, and even a human would be blind not to see where all those words and all that charisma really comes from.

Underestimating a woman is dangerous. Datak Tarr has built his whole life on it, and Alak has spent all of his vowing to never be that stupid.

*

“You know I’m dangerous.”

It’s about the longest sentence she’s uttered in two or three days, and he has to work really hard to shroud his surprise. “I know you could castrate me in eight different ways from where you’re sitting,” he answers guardedly, and prays that that’s what she’s driving at.

“That’s not dangerous,” she huffs. “That’s just practical.”

“Not dangerous for you, maybe,” he shoots back. “But some of us kind of take some pride in our manhood, so…”

“That pride is sorely misplaced,” she says, quite seriously.

He clasps a hand to his chest, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, like she’s just stuck him in the heart with one of those pesky knives of hers. “Right where it hurts!” he laments, all exaggeration and melodrama.

Irisa sighs, but doesn’t say anything further. She settles back on her haunches, perfectly balanced like always as she works on sharpening her blade. It’s kind of mesmerising when she does that, all slow strokes and deliberate swipes, like she’s feeding a fragile baby creature, and Alak watches for a moment or two before swinging back to work. He thinks about pressing the issue, asking her to elaborate, but they both know there’s no point to it. If she wants to talk, she’ll talk, and if she doesn’t, there’s nothing in the world he can do to make her.

Besides, he’s heard the gossip just like the rest of the town has, the hushed whispers of passers-by in the street, muttering and murmuring to each other about how Nolan’s kid thinks she’s some kind of god creature or something. He wouldn’t put it past her, but if it’s true, it’s a whole lot more drama than he signed up for.

Alak doesn’t set much stock by rumours, but shies away from the Irath chanting today, just to be safe. Instead, he sticks to Casti instrumentals and old-Earth hippie folk, the kind of stuff that teenage poseurs claim to love because it’s ‘deep’. Alak’s never been one for posturing, and he’s not really sure he would personally call Enya ‘deep’, but it’s pretty good for kicking back and watching the clouds drift over the town.

It’s definitely good for pretending he’s not keeping the company of a potential psychopath with a god complex, anyway.

At last, when it’s clear that she can’t take another second of _Paint The Sky With Stars_ , she snaps her head up and slides her knife into its sheath, as tender and protective as a mother.

“Why do you let me stay here?” she asks. “You know I’m dangerous, and we both know what your parents would do if they thought you were entertaining an Irathient.” She cocks her head. “So why do you keep letting me come up here?”

Alak shrugs. “I couldn’t stop you, even if I wanted to.”

It’s a fair point, and she acknowledges it with a primal grunt. “Do you want to?”

He rolls his shoulders again. “Not really,” he replies.

Irisa makes a thoughtful noise deep in her throat. “Do you want me to leave?”

He opens his mouth to tell her ‘no’, but something stops him in his tracks before he can get the word out. This is the first time, he realises, that she’s actually taken the time to ask what _he_ wants. Irisa’s not exactly the kind to care what other people think about her, or what they want from her, and Alak is suddenly quite poignantly aware of what’s going on here. She’s not simply asking if he wants her here or not; in her twisted backwards way, she’s offering to go if he doesn’t. She’s telling him that she will leave if he wants her to, with protest, and not because she wants to, but because he wants her to. Next to her little game of Grand Theft Vinyl, it’s pretty much the most generous thing she’s capable of.

The question is a weighted one, then, heavy-laden with meaning, and Alak feels all too keenly the pressure of answering it correctly. Irisa’s mind is sharper than any blade he’s ever seen, and she’ll know in a heartbeat if he’s just saying what he thinks she wants to hear. Of course, it kind of helps in this case that what he thinks she wants to hear is also the truth, so he leans back with a carefree half-shrug, that same shoulder-roll she responds to so well, and shoots her the kind of grin that would melt any lesser girl into a puddle.

“Course not,” he says, and he means it. “Who else am I gonna talk shop with?”

Irisa shrugs. “Your girlfriend,” she suggests. There’s no jealousy or bitterness there; it’s a suggestion, nothing more, simple and straightforward, like everything she says.

“My fiancee,” he corrects, and she ignores him. “Christie. Nice suggestion, but nah. She’s not really into the music scene. A dude’s gotta have his own stuff, right? And besides, she totally gets it.”

Something flickers on her face at that, as though she’s genuinely surprised but doesn’t want to admit it. “She’s willing to let you keep company with…” She trails off, curses in Irath, then tries again. “She allows you to spend so much of your time with someone like me?”

“She’s human,” Alak shrugs. “She doesn’t care about all that Casti-Irath political shtako.”

Irisa covers up a sigh with a disdainful roll of her eyes. “Does she know I’m dangerous?”

Alak counters her sigh with one of his own, but he’s not so bull-headed as to try and mask it like she does. It’s a fair question, he supposes; she must know the rumours as well as he does, and it’s sweet in a strange alien sort of way that she worries enough about his relationship with Christie to wonder how much his girl knows about his new friend’s inner god.

“You gotta stop talking about yourself like that,” he says. “You’re only dangerous when you wave those things around.”

It’s not what she’s talking about, and he knows it, but she doesn’t try to correct him. “That in itself is a good enough reason for your girlfriend to keep me away from you,” she tells him, and he supposes she’s right about that; as understanding as Christie is, it would be kind of hard to explain if Irisa ever did decide to follow through on her threats against his manhood.

“She trusts me,” he says after a moment or two. “And she trusts you, too.”

“Why?” she demands.

He thinks about it. “Because you haven’t given her any reason not to, I guess.”

And it is exactly that: a guess. He doesn’t try to sugar-coat the fact, or pretend it’s anything more than speculation, but it placates Irisa for the moment, and she seems to think it over. He watches as she runs it over in her head, and he’d swear he can actually hear the wheels and gears in her brain turning round and round as she tries to process it, tries to make sense of the idea that anyone might trust her at all, whether or not she’d given them a reason to. It’s sad and sweet, and more than a little painful, and as he watches her face, Alak thinks about Christie. He thinks about her face, her smile, the light in her eyes; he’s always thought of that light as a reflection of her soul, pure and bright and breathtakingly beautiful, all those perfect things he sees in her, all those perfect things he might one day become as she shines into him. He thinks about her, about how lucky he is to have her, and feels the love swell higher in his heart, the kind of song that eludes even his sizeable collection.

They’ve barely even met, Christie and Irisa, and yet Christie knows her as well. She knows as much about this troubled, confused, weird little Irathient kid as Alak does, and it blows his mind just as surely as it seems to be blowing Irisa’s right now that someone who doesn’t even know her could place so much trust in her.

At last, Irisa looks back up at him. “I still don’t understand.”

“Christie trusts you,” Alak says again, softer. “And so do I.”

Irisa studies him, thoughtful and guarded. Then, at long last, her guard seems to drop a little. Not a lot, not that he’d ever expect it to — she’s still one of them, after all, and they’re warriors to the end — but just enough that he sees it, and he knows her well enough to know that she’ll know he’s seen it. It’s an offering, or as close to one as she’s capable of and he accepts it with a wordless, sincere smile.

“I see,” she says, and in the reflected metallic half-light of the arch, it almost looks like she’s smiling too.

**FIN**


End file.
